Galbut moves meeting from Miami Beach City Hall, SoFi residents wary of South Shore project

Developer Russell Galbut has backed off his request to hold a meeting today on plans for the South Shore Hospital property in the Miami Beach City Commission chambers.

Instead, the discussion of the development will happen at the Shelbourne Hotel, 1801 Collins Ave., which is owned by Galbut’s Crescent Heights firm. It starts at 1 p.m.

That moves the meeting away from the protest planned at noon today in front of City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Dr., by activists angered by the recent code enforcement scandal and other issues in Miami Beach.

The commission agreement to allow Crescent Heights to use City Hall for its design charrette sparked some of that anger. Crescent Heights is seeking design proposals for a mixed use project on the property between West Avenue and Alton Road north of Fifth Street, including an outlet mall.

Meanwhile, the South of Fifth Neighborhood Association says it needs to pay close attention to plans for the South Shore property, because of the huge potential impact on their area.

This note went out to SOFNA residents on Tuesday:

To: sofna@sofna.net
This coming Thursday, April 26, from 1:00 pm – 5:00, Miami Beach developer, Russell Galbut, and his company, Crescent Heights, will present a design Charrette at the Shelborne Hotel, 1801 Collins.  Mr. Galbut, who will soon be a South of Fifth neighbor with a private home along First Street,  has retained three prominent architecture firms to submit competing designs for a proposed retail outlet mall that he hopes to build from the west side of 5^th and Alton through 7^th and Alton.  The Charrette will be moderated by Adam Drisin, Associate Dean of FIU’s College of Architecture.

 The South of Fifth Neighborhood Association (SOFNA) has not taken an official position on the outlet mall proposals and will not do so before the details are unveiled this Thursday.  Even after reviewing the designs, we will likely need further information from independent traffic analysts, as well as a determination of whether such a commercial use would have beneficial or deleterious effects on other businesses and adjoining neighborhoods such as ours.

However, we cannot overemphasize the importance of attending Thursday’s hearing.  We understand that it is an inconvenient time for many since it’s midafternoon during a weekday.  But for those of you who can make it, your attendance could be important.  When we founded SOFNA in 2007, one of the matters about which many members expressed frustration was our organization’s inability to have any effect on the 5^th and Alton shopping center.   SOFNA came into existence after the city commission and all the relevant city boards had already given a green light to that center.

Fifth and Alton was a good lesson.  The earlier and more vocal our neighborhood’s position on a project is heard by city officials, the better the odds we can have a substantive effect.   We hope that those of you can attend will do so, and if you have an opinion for or against, you’ll make it known.

SOFNA Board of Directors

Steve Mandy, President

Victor Diaz, Vice-President

Gerald Posner, Secretary

Mike Perlmutter, Treasurer

John Conrad

Morris Sunshine

Laura Cullen

 

Miami Beach TV adds U-Verse to television options

It’s getting easier to follow what your Miami Beach city government is doing — and there’s plenty going on that affects Belle Isle, the Venetian and the Sunset Harbour areas.

The city announced this week that U-Verse television service from AT&T now carries MBTV (that’s the city public service programming) on Channel 99. Atlantic Broadband already had city government activities on Channel 77. And many city hearings are streamed live at  http://web.miamibeachfl.gov/mbtv77/ .

Most major meetings are carried live — from the City Commission to the planning, design review and historic preservation boards.

The city gets a lot of criticism, but arranging for this coverage really opens up the process so you can follow decisions that affect you from your home or office.

Still no coverage for Direct TV subscribers, though. Sorry 9 Island!

Belle Isle drainage fix seems to be working — but not before heavy cost to residents

The pink sidewalk and curbing has been replaced. Island Avenue and the causeway in front of the Grand Venetian are dry.

It looks like the Belle Isle drainage fix actually worked.

But not before many Belle Isle residents suffered damage to their cars from repeatedly driving through salt water flooding on Island Avenue.

The drainage fix, which involved replacing an old and clogged outfall pipe with a new and larger one, was declared successful by new capital improvements director Fernando Vazquez at last week’s Miami Beach City Commission meeting.

“In principal, what we have seen so far is optimal,” Vazquez said. “

We’ve documented the failed efforts and frequent floods on the island.

Last week, Belle Isle Residents Association president Scott Diffenderfer thanked city commissioners for their efforts, but pointed out that during years of failed effort to fix the drainage problem, the city created a situation that caused the streets to flood with bay water even when it didn’t rain. Belle Isle residents warned for years that the project wasn’t engineered right, but the city didn’t listen.

“This is a lesson the city really needs to take to heart,” Diffenderfer said. “Belle Isle never had a salt water issue until this project started. This city pump forced salt water from the bay…on to our streets.

“We are in the to hundreds of thousands of dollars of totalled cars” from rust caused by salt-water, he said. “…This was created by the city.  hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage — two-year-old cars that go in for brake jobs and are totalled out.”

Commissioner Michael Gongora said “all we can do is apologize for what happened in the past.”

Adding Commissioner Jonah Wolfson: “It is true, there were years there where it just fell through the cracks.”

Said Commissioner Ed Tobin: There’s no excuse for what had been going on here for many, many years….i will tell you that there needs to be more accountability….Unfortunately, some employees need to be let go….to say we asre taking more careful measures now….”

You can watch a video of the entire discussion.

Miami Beach approves Venetian streetscape funding

When Miami Beach city commissioners approved the new city budget on Monday, they also approved complete funding for the Rivo Alto, San Marino and DiLido islands streetscape project.

Venetian Island homeowners have lobbied for several years for the project, which includes repaving the Venetian Way and replacing all curbs, gutters, sidewalks, adding decorative crosswalks at intersections, landscaping medians and swale areas, improving bike lanes and re-doing all the lighting.

On the individual islands, the rehab is equally extensive — from new sidewalks to lighting and landscaping and drainage. (For more on the project.)

In a letter to homeowners, Venetian Islands Homeowner Association president Greg Carney praised city of Miami Beach staff and the commission, which approved the project unanimously. In contrast, they approved the $237 million city budget on a 4-3 vote.

“The City staff, especially the City Manager Jorge Gonzalez and Capital Improvements Project Director Charlie Carreno, worked with our engineer and Bill Goldsmith to get the numbers into the budget and so should be thanked,” Carney wrote. “Bill Goldsmith, of course, has been unbelievably helpful to us in this and is owed a great debt of gratitude by our residents.  Debbie Leibowitz took one for the team and sat through the Commission meeting from 5 PM until 8 PM when our item was finally voted on.  So if you see her, please give her a special pat on the back.  Finally, all the Commissioners (Deede Weithorn, Ed Tobin, Michael Gongora, Jonah Wolfson, Jerry Libbin, and Joe Exposito) as well as the Mayor (Matti Bower) all voted for our project (as well as a number of others including the Sunsets).”